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Not What They Are Expecting

It is a familiar
theme in
religious stories that people fail to see God when he appears to them
because he is not what they are expecting. They already have a clear
conception of what God is like, and when he or she confronts them
directly, they turn away because "that just couldn't be right."

The description of the dying process in Tibetan
Buddhist
myth
illustrates this. One summer at the Mann Ranch I was assisting Joseph
Campbell at a lecture on the Bardo Thodol, the so-called Tibetan Book
of the Dead. My job was to operate the slide projector. Campbell had
given me a loaded carrousel and asked me to change the slides at his
signal.

As the lecture began, slides appeared of the Tibetan
mountains
and countryside, then paintings of Tibetan priests like those who
might be attending the dying soul on its afterlife journey, and then
finally of the dying person. At Campbell's nod I clicked in the next
slide. The screen was flooded with bright white light; no slide had
entered the projector. Something's wrong, I thought, and clicked the
advance switch again. This time a mandala of the bliss-bestowing
buddhas appeared. And even as I was relaxing, Campbell explained my
error. I had demonstrated his point.

The immediate
experience of
the soul on entering the afterlife is of the Clear Light. This is the
direct experience of nirvana, of ultimate consciousness. Yet the soul
bypasses it, looking for some expected image--even though it has been
taught over and over that the Clear Light is the first thing it will
see. I'd studied Tibetan Buddhism. I knew that the Clear Light would
be the first vision after death. Yet when the slide that was no-slide
appeared as the bright white light on the screen, I panicked and
switched it off.

Now the first teaching of the mystics is that God or
nirvana
is
never what one expects. One's opinions always get in the way. What
one must empty oneself of is opinions. The reason for teaching
emptiness is to call the mind past its opinions. That is true, in
some ways, of all religious doctrines. By undermining the belief in
the obvious sensible material world, doctrine breaks one bond to
views and opinions. If, however, the belief in the spiritual world
takes on the same simple solid character that it was designed to
undermine, then the spiritual teaching has been lost.

Perhaps we moderns who believe nothing are closer to
the
Light
than we have ever imagined!

Afterlife

Holding thoughts
about dying and
afterlife is a meditation practice for rising above ourself. As we
meditate about waking up and popping out of our body and floating
through a "tunnel of light," we can shift our consciousness beyond
our ego. The image of afterlife is a practice of mystical perception.
(Read about Why Gay Men
Reincarnate.)

Realizing we cannot possibly imagine afterlife allows
us to
understand we cannot tell what is and is not the Clear Light. Once we
understand this, we can understand that we see the Clear Light right
now. Such a vision, always fleeting and available only in special
moments achieved through meditation or psychedelic realization, helps
us overcome the limitations of ego.

If we think we are our name and looks and body and the
history
we remember, there is going to be nothing left of us when these
things fall away--as they inevitably will. If we understand instead
that we are just a point of view of the consciousness of the
universe, then even when that particular point of view comes to an
end, we go on.

When we see beyond ourselves, we can see that
everybody
else is
also just a point of view of consciousness. Then when our ego sees
other egos, it can rejoice in their joy, experiencing their joy as
its own with no judgment, no disapproval, no jealousy. What a
comforting meditation it is to see that the being inside the
beautiful young men you see is you! They are not separate, alien
entities. You can enjoy their beauty as a sign and manifestation of
your own true beauty, their supple bodies as yours. This is, indeed,
the meditation that founds a positive experience of pornography. It
is the meaning of the story of Avalokiteshvara.

The images of the myths--and the exercise of seeing
into
and
through them--are practices in awakening consciousness now. If we
have seen heaven during life, we are more apt to recognize it after
life. At any rate, if we can manage to experience heaven now, whether
there is an afterlife or not, why wait?

Follow Your Bliss

Understanding that
afterlife myths
are
about mystical vision suggests to us that we are seeing the Clear
Light all the time--right now. Buddhahood/Christhood is available to
us at every moment. The Beatific Vision shines forth everywhere
around us. But we do not see it because it is not what we were
expecting. Our beliefs and opinions, likes and dislikes get in the
way. We choose the Beatific Vision by choosing things as they are,
being conscious of what is real, not resisting. This is a central
teaching of spiritual wisdom.

Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss and don't be
afraid,
and doors will open where you never knew there were going to be
doors."

Bliss is a technical term in Buddhism. It does not
mean
mere
happiness or satisfaction. Rather it means fulfillment of who we
really are, realization of buddhahood, accomplishment of the goals
that drive us to find meaning in life. To follow our bliss is to
disregard all the rules that tell us how we are supposed to behave
and to seek our own path.

To follow our bliss is to live in such a way that we
can
always
love our experience. It means to make choices and decisions about our
life that we will not regret. It means not giving up our dreams and
settling for security or acceptability in other people's eyes.

Bliss is the experience of knowing--and loving--why
you're
alive, what you were born for. And what that always is is to be a
source of good intention for the evolution of consciousness, i.e. for
the growth of God out of the matter and energy of the sun. For, as
Carl Jung tells us he discovered, "The Sun is God; everyone can see
that!"

Renowned
Comparative Religion
scholar
and mythographer, Joseph Campbell was the Great Teacher and "wise old
man" of White Crane editor Toby Johnson.

For five summers during the early 70s, Johnson was
fortunate
to
have worked on staff at a Jungian oriented conference center in
Northern California called The Mann Ranch Seminars. There he met and
befriended Joseph Campbell. He corresponded with Campbell for over 10
years.

Toby Johnson, PhDis
author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of
his
teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and
religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual
issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's
spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor
of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness.

Johnson's book
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They
remain
in
print.

FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth
of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the
real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual
qualities of gay male consciousness.